


A Familiar Face is One to Hold

by Estivate



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bottom Loki (Marvel), Forced Shapeshifting, Loki in chains, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Secret Relationship, Sibling Incest, Top Thor (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 08:16:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15481515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estivate/pseuds/Estivate
Summary: Gasping, Loki’s chin is tilted up to meet Thor’s gaze, holding it steady as the transition wracks his body in tremors. Thor tries to resist the green of those eyes, a green he could lose himself in, abdicate for – if it weren’t that Loki was his like this already.He strokes Loki’s head where hair is instead of feathers now, but still silken and takes note of the additional inch in length before taking advantage of Loki’s inviting mouth.





	A Familiar Face is One to Hold

_“Do you know what precisely makes Asgard the greatest realm of the nine?”_

Of late, his father has been contemplative, as all kings on the verge of handing over the crown are. Asgard rebuilds herself slowly in his retreat, her people knowing that the setting of one sun presages the rise of a new one. Those triumphant in their kingdom’s victory and determined after the face of tragedy promise to make her resurgence even grander than before.

It’s the dawning of a new age.

Thor has been expectant for some time: not the petulant entitlement of his younger days – but the solemn resolve of a steady hand to steer. Standing in his father’s study now however, posited the same question all Asgardian youths are educated in, Thor feels reduced to that of a small boy again. Yet in the years following his previous failed coronation and humbled by forces beyond his imaginings, the answers his royal tutors instilled in him die on the tongue. He swallows thickly in guilt, it was unbecoming of a king – nay, a prince even.

As acting regent, it was not his place to ask, but his thoughts swim all the same: _Are we..?_

Odin did not expect Thor to have the answer he sought. This would be the last lesson to pass on to his son along with the official mantle of ruler.

He is tired. Oh so very tired.

 _“Allfather. You look weary,”_ those words once spoken seemingly an age ago now, and now it has been an age since. His queen dead, a wayward son in chains, a kingdom struggling to rebuild. If it were merely his kingdom blighted, that he could have endured, but his family has been rent asunder. Nothing has turned out as it should.

But Odin is stubborn, and there is one last option to salvage from the wreckage of a father’s design.

Odin walks past Thor to the balcony beyond greeted by two pairs of wings. Huginn lands on his vambrace while Muninn takes his place on the wizened king’s shoulder. Three beings scan the horizon: two pairs of eyes cast beyond the reaches of Asgard and one lone one to survey his kingdom – it’s history, present, and future to be all laid bare before his gaze. The sunset is resplendent and Odin drinks in the sight. “Heimdall will serve you as he has served me.”

Thor nods, sensing his father has still to continue.

“But even Heimdall’s gaze is limited. Furthermore, he is bound only by what he chooses to say rather than saying all that he sees.”

This much is true. As an adolescent, Thor has quietly pleaded Heimdall during whatever mischief to never reveal the misdeed of the day to his parents, for fear of reprimand, shame, or merriment cut short.

Huginn makes to playfully nip Odin’s hand as he extends it to smooth those ink black feathers. Ever faithful, ever expedient. Daily they criss-cross the nine and return at dusk to perch on the shoulders of their master once more. In Yggdrasil’s history there has never been a victor or warrior to surpass Odin, yet the reconnaissance they impart to him is the reason he knows so much.

Legends say that Huginn and Muninn were the first to descend upon Ymir’s defeated corpse, landing to feast on the elemental blood of the first giant fallen – setting thick with spillover magic. The pair descended both at once, and thus imbued with power inherent. From then on they became embodiments of thought and memory, extension of Odin’s own to serve as his eyes and ears. In ruling Asgard for as long as he did, the ravens’ presence signified Odin’s ever watchful eye over the realms and that despite the loss of one real, he was all the wiser for it.

Odin strokes Muninn’s beak and when he speaks his voice is full of sorrow Thor does not expect, “These birds have bore the responsibility of the crown as much as any beast of burden: a winged pair with no pilot and no need for pay.”

No doubt a priceless asset to any in the realm if only there were another like it.

“Just as a king is more than a glorified warlord, diplomacy is more than attending to the voices at court. Once you understand this will you be able to rule with clarity of mind against those who would speak false or act in self interest…but Huginn and Muninn are inextricably linked to me and will die when I do.”

Whatever impressions Thor had upon entering and as the conversation began of how their talk would go, he is now quickly losing sight of. Surely Odin would not call for him in so somber a mood to belabour a hopeless standing. Respectfully, he concedes, “Father I don’t understand.”

‘Never has there been’: but Odin will be glad to impart the title to Thor now, and see his reign surpassed.

Tomorrow Thor will be crowned, but tonight he will be given his last task as prince. Odin faces him, long shadows cast from the ridges of his aged face, accentuating the lines and wrinkles now seemingly etched in their severity.

“You have my permission to go see your brother.”

The heaviness in those eyes against the simplicity of the statement serves to give him pause.

\---

The palace’s deepest depths hold not her rarest treasures, but her greatest enemies. He thinks humourlessly how the Norns delight in his torment by having his brother be one and the same. Thor has not seen the conditions of Loki’s second sentence, not since their return to Asgard after Svartalfheim, not since Loki confessed that he was the one who gave away Frigga’s whereabouts. Torn as Thor was to his loyalties as brother and son, Loki was the one who came back willingly to face penance. The sentence was short and private. He was to carry out the rest of his days here, and the rest of Asgard to be told of his death to save face for the royal family. Despite a year having passed, as with when the Dark Elves attacked, Thor finds himself in a position to confront Loki’s fate before he is ready -unsure to mourn or resent. His steps echo on stone and settle as a hollow ringing in his ears.

Down he goes and begins to feel the weight of Asgard: her age, her responsibilities, her sorrow. These cells predated the kingdom itself and was built atop the underground dungeons from her bloodstained history and ascent. Thor descends one step at a time into the belly of the beast. The sickly torch lights spiral inwards guiding those into a waking nightmare by the way of the will-o-wisp. He sees no bottom and all that rises to meet him are guttural moans only barely still human in their anguish

These were different from the royal prisons: their inhabitants thrown in only to meet their slow decay by darkness’ grip, death seeming too easy an escape for the crimes committed. Far beneath where the sun might shine, monsters and madness contend their stay. No guards patrol here except the lonely gatekeeper who seldom has reason to open a cell’s door after it becomes occupied. This may very well be a first.

He followed the pale grub of a man to Loki’s cell, his tenure in these dungeons affecting him like how a species of insect may adapt to a cave without light. When Thor told him to direct the way, he had quirked an eyebrow in amusement, fingered out the key from a ring of them, and smiled menacingly in acknowledgement. Belatedly, Thor notices the man’s tongue had been cut out. His guide as mute sentry thus sparing him the need for small talk, though they have been walking for what seems like a long time, but he has no sure way of knowing how long.

There’s nothing to distract him from the purpose of this visit; the drawn out anticipation forces his mind to linger. He takes out the pair of metal cuffs to observe them closer, feeling the carved runes’ power as it hums in his hand the same way gripping Mjolnir might. The pale gold make and slender build could lead another to mistake the item for jewelry. Thor recognizes Brokkr’s craftsmanship in its simplicity. He suspects the dwarf crafted them with inlaid spite, and wonders how much, if at all, he should trust the device.

Eventually, they arrive before a door no different that any of the previous ones already passed. Nothing to differentiate Loki from the rest of the wretched souls down here, except perhaps, that the presence inside is quiet. It’s a promising sign, Thor thinks. His brother has not yet gone mad with raving. He grabs the nearby torchlight, one per each cell, and pushes to enter.

The weak flame doesn’t light up the entirety of the room, small enough as it is, but it illuminates his brother’s kneeling frame enough. He’d been stripped naked, shackled at both ankles, and body drawn up by the chains binding his wrists connected to opposite ends of the ceiling.

“Loki...” he whispers, words leaving his lips like a prayer for the first time in ages.

The position must have been agonizing, blood stained the rock under his knees. His brother has always been pale, but now Thor can make out the venation beneath his skin in places where it clings to his bones like glass.

Loki’s eyes fluttered open upon his entry, eyes temporary blinded by the sudden source of light. He raised his head to look up at Thor, and then lowered it again: the motion a parody of a bow. Thor’s footsteps come into view but Loki keeps his head down. His brother’s graceful limbs strained to maintain this position in an effort to release a modicum of the pressure on his wrists.

Thor’s hands, always so large and sturdy in the confidence of battle or the embrace of comrades, tremble with the motion of parting the hair from Loki’s face to caress it. Loki flinches almost imperceptibly at the contact, but cannot keep from leaning into the touch and does so as much as he can afford with how stiffly his body responds.

Thor thought he’d be angry upon seeing Loki again: for abandoning them, for abandoning him. For choosing to return to face the punishment in his guilt when Thor would’ve given anything for him to be selfish and run when he had the chance. He knows it was second hand matricide, is none the happier for it, but he could of -- should of —. If not anger then at least numbness, just like how he’d been during the attendance of the second trial. Loki had not even looked towards him once before he was escorted away. Did not speak a word in his defence that it was not his own hand that slipped the dagger to his Queen. Above all else he should hate him for what he’s done to their family and to Asgard.

Instead his heart fills with tenderness seeing Loki thus.

He tilts Loki’s chin up so that he can properly drink in the sight of his beautiful brother once more. Rests his hand against the pale column of Loki’s neck. Like this, kneeling naked before him - it beckons something within Thor that he would rather never be made known.

He commands the warden to leave them and waits for the sound of footsteps to fade into a satisfying distance.

He can feel the bob of Loki’s parched throat, swallowing the damp air around them as if it would offer relief. It must have been an age since he’s last used his voice.

Thor offers something better and takes those lips in his.

They are frozen like this for a heartbeat or two. Loki’s breath hitches but the strain on his chafed and raw wrists are such that his weakened arms can not provide any support to pull away. Thor cards his fingers in those dark locks and envelops them deeper. Having him, finally, breaks the spell of anger and misery that has encloaked him in productive numbness all this time.

The chains rattle with the abrupt motion of Thor taking in as much of his brother as the restraints allow as he embraces the cold and abandoned forgotten prince of Asgard.

He has him now, yes, but for how long?

His thoughts run away with him to the other wretched souls caught here in this infernal maw of a dungeon. Locked in here to spiral into their own demise, left to outlive hope, or otherwise retreat into their own minds. No. He will not leave Loki to the same fate.

With one hand he brushes his brother’s hair back from his face, reassures him with a gesture not one unlike mother’s when they were children. He reaches into his cloak and recalls his father’s instruction, thumbs the runes humming against his skin, and exchanges one pair of shackles for another.

—

The coronation was a joyous affair. The people of Asgard, given so little to truly find celebration in lately, indulge in all colours and stripes of felicitation to mark the crowning of their king.

His subjects before him swear their fealty.

His friends and compatriots pledge their lives to him and the throne.

His father gazes at him the truest look of happiness Thor has seen in a long time.

Everything was as he had always imagined, was always promised, had looked forward to. Thor bends the knee before Odin Allfather and accepts the crown and all it signifies. During the celebration feast, he drinks to toast upon toast in his honour and the taste of it is as a drop of blood in wine. He drinks to it all the same.

—

He eases into the seat of Hlidskjalf, at once reverent and hesitant. After this, Asgard will never look the same to him again. He peers down the dais across the court. Gungnir in one hand, Mjolnir on his belt, subjects before him, power absolute.

The scene, resplendent and commanding, is not where he chooses to focus. Instead he closes his eyes, pushes his mind outwards, follows the mental tug, and watches as a different setting takes place beneath his eyelids.

The sky is infinite and of the softest ironed gray.

A brooding mist settles between the craggy mountains up north, gentle as an inhale. The rocks of their formation having been there a millennia before them, and here they are, having only arrived today to see it.

It takes him a moment to identify the wind he tastes through powered flight - those combined of spruce and melting snow, grass from soil, the sun and all that lights the way: freedom.

—

Two seasons go by in the blink of an eye.

Every part of Asgard is laid bare beneath them and she is equal measures glorious and tragic under his gaze. Thor observes each detail of the land and its people in all their daily hardships and triumphs.

A child stops his crying when his older sister sneaks him a portion she saved from her plate.

A farmer shakes his head at this year’s orchard’s yield: a third of the year’s previous, but the fruit twice as sweet.

A merchant cuts his alloy’s quality with impurities in a way he hopes goes unnoticed by others. Not all his usual trade routes have reopened and he resorts to stretching out his wares.

A scholar studies the current treaties in place with Jotunheim while his candle burns the last wick. Renegotiations are in two moon’s time and he needs to present his opinions to court.

A worker buffs the wood of a ceremonial long boat’s stern. He was a scrawny lad when beginning his trade, but they have built many ships to ferry those to Valhalla since.

A palace weaver pricks her finger on the needlework for the tapestry’s illustration of their king’s new reign. She’s one of the best, but her eyesight these days compromises her pace.

A servant loses her composure towards the lord she is serving, but the gossip she just overheard a table over is too lascivious for anyone who was anyone.

A stable boy bribes his favourite steed with carrots so that the mare may cooperate on a late night gallop: air crisp and stars bright.

A call, distant and distorted, as if hearing through water entices him back.

“—ess.”

He’s opens his eyes to his throne room.

“Your highness.”

Sif stands before him, loyal and true. “It is as you said, we’ve apprehended the traders from Muspelheim. Their group had been plotting sabotage, evidence we’ve gathered for trial.”

He nods, expectant, “Try them on the morrow, but do not let word of their capture reach Surtr’s ears. His trade minister will be on the alert. Let them to their imaginations.”

“The irrigation channels to the south are in need of—“

“Thor,” she interrupts him with all the respect due to royalty, but it’s revealing how much his station has perhaps estranged them both that she only uses it now instead of greeting him as such to begin with. “You’ve worked tirelessly to the benefit of the realm...” she fidgets as if nervous about her following words.

“But not even the previous Allfather, in his regency’s height, bore the crown’s burdens alone as much as you have.” There’s a twinge of hurt to her tone. These days he engages with them as formality dictates and little more beyond. His rule has been just, to be sure, only so much less of it has been with the camaraderie they once shared and that once bound them to each other. His wisdom and foresight surprises them, intuition seemingly as accurate as any seer. And although they witness it impressed, their King seems unknowable to them as Thor never was.

“Her late majesty would have been so proud of you, Thor, not only in your accomplishments as a ruler, but as all mothers hope soon too, to become grandmothers.” she finishes with a semblance of a blush on her face, a sight as strange to him as the subject currently must be to her.

It was one thing to have his courtiers and councilmen encourage the matter of an heir, and by necessity, a queen - but to have Sif herself propose the same would not prevent him from dismissing it just as quickly as he did with them. So she has been intrepidly exploring court politics as well.

However, he knows with her it is from a source of genuine consideration, as opposed to political hand wringing. He is not so blinded by proximity to not know of how Sif feels for him. Perhaps it is also to his advisors’ intentions since they consider her a most suitable candidate. He chooses his words gently.

“Sif, you have been my right hand in all this from the day I was crowned. You see Asgard’s obligations and urgencies as keenly as I do. I will turn to these matters the day when our people are as safe and prosperous as they were before. Until then, will you see it through with me that it comes as soon as possible?”

She can do nothing but smile and agree with this, but turns away to excuse herself for the evening before Thor notices the embarrassment on her face made plain: her gambit failed, and that it was herself the messenger doubly so.

The torch light stretches all shadows to a preposterous length. Sif’s lingers long after her person has left the hall, as if it possessed her bruised heart instead of its host.

Thor groans. It had never been his intention to hurt her so.

He brings a hand up to rub his eyes. The hour was late and he was alone. Most others had already retired for the night.

He does not yet have a right sense for the passage of time when his mind and body are separate and wonders how long it took Odin to adapt seeing as how he had one bird more as well.

The days’ images pass through his thoughts in a reel. He has seen more than enough for now.

He sees all but that which he wants most and tonight he can bear it no longer.

—

This wing of the palace used to belong to the second prince. Memories dance behind each pillar and alcove. Phantom laughter ring off the walls.

He has walked these corridors a lifetime and sees every iteration of themselves pass through it with him. One always running after another, quick on the heels of delight. A peck on the cheek here, a scuffle there. Stolen kisses, shared secrets.

The present catches up to and infuses with him, setting pace with only one pair of footsteps.

No guards stand vigil in these halls and no servants tend to the emptied rooms. He has no need of them here, not in this sanctuary.

For once he’s grateful that his actions and their surface level meanings are explanation enough, for they whisper in hushed tones:

_‘Same wing. Same room.’_

_‘Never did retrieve a body.’_

_‘To lose so much in such short a time.’_

_‘Heartbroken he is.’_

_‘His smile used to put the sun to shame.’_

_‘Never even says his name.’_

_‘Poor soul.’_

_‘Poor soul…’_

His people laud him in their own praise, and then pity him in the same breath for all that he has retreated into his duties. In his grief, he cannot possibly be expected to choose a bride just yet.  
  
Their nameless voices stop as he does before a heavy set of oak doors. Inside it has been preserved. A thin layer of dust has settled over everything but the bed, betraying its sole use.

Outside, the evening’s chandelier of stars invite him onto the marble terrace. Striding across the room, he shucks off his boots, light armour, and tunic. His breeches and leather vambraces remain. The chill is a strange solace as it nips at his skin like a lover. He has come to enjoy the cold more than he ever thought to, being originally a child of summer.

Thor scans the horizon of the city falling to slumber, lights winking out one at a time. Then, the breeze greeting him is not of autumn’s anymore, but the flurry of wings so soft and quiet that he feels the weight of its landing on his forearm before he hears his familiar return. The falcon fixed him with an unsettling gaze, almost enough to be called a scowl. He was a handsome bird of his species and Thor uses the curve of his finger to pet his head before it bends to nibble at the gold bands on its ankles.

He takes them back into the chamber, and with a deft brush of his thumb against the rune work, undoes the binding’s enchantment. There’s a rush of warmth and wings, and then his brother’s lithe form is collapsed weakly in his arms. Thor lowers him against the furs.

Loki struggles with senses disillusioned. His arms find no purchase on the sheets as the air underneath his wings did, and his body is heavy, too heavy – bones no longer hollow and light. Thor folds him into an embrace, supporting him against his chest and tells him to breathe. Loki’s breaths are erratic and desperate as his heartbeat settles from a bird’s nine beats for an Aesir’s four. It threatens to pound out of his ribcage.

It’s too much.

Gasping, Loki’s chin is tilted up to meet Thor’s gaze, holding it steady as the transition wracks his body in tremors. Thor tries to resist the green of those eyes, a green he could lose himself in, abdicate for – if it weren’t that Loki was his like this already.

He strokes Loki’s head where hair is instead of feathers now, but still silken and takes note of the additional inch in length before taking advantage of Loki’s inviting mouth. His brother whimpers beneath him. He kisses him and lets the ache in his chest rupture past his lips, to share this longing. It’s only the two of them now: no room for remorse and none for shame.

Thor quickly divests all remaining items of clothing and greedily indulges in his brother’s body. Loki clinging to his shoulders like a lifeline and Thor as one seeking oblivion. He professes things to Loki that he can no longer in anyone else: words of comfort, words of loneliness. When Loki is dizzy with kisses that steal his hard won breath away, Thor confesses three on repeat, his brother powerless to refuse his affections.

Their figures couple together on the threshold between today and tomorrow. He maps the planes of Loki’s body with his tongue, chases those ravaged lips with urgency, and brings them to the brink of pleasure again and again until there is nothing of their vessels to spill.

Now, in the nascent dawn, horizon red-rimmed spilling sanguine into their quarters, Thor’s heart could not be more exposed than if there had been an open wound above the source of his distilled desire.

He looks back to his brother’s slumbering, spent form, crimson cape covering him for warmth.

In the end, he has all that he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> Oomph. I've been meaning to unload this since TDW, but lost the steam to see it through until the Ragnarok-and-Infinity-War excitement re-stirred the fandom.


End file.
